Best Venison / Moose Recipes

Now that the hunting season is nearly over, and (hopefully) your freezer is full from your hard labor (or some other hunter's generosity), I'd like to hear about your favorite recipes for venison and moose. All cuts from roasts, to steaks, to stew, to ground.

As a starter, attached is an amazing regional Canadian meat pie recipe from Quebec.

Brown meat in sauté pan and season with salt and pepper, remove meat and drain fat. Sauté onions and garlic in butter for a minute, return drained meat, and add spices. Add water and quickly bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer until the meat is tender, about 20 minutes. Remove the lid, stir in the breadcrumbs, and continue cooking uncovered until the liquid has evaporated but meat is still nice and moist (add a little water if mixture is too dry). Check the seasonings.

Cool then put mixture into an uncooked pie shell.

Brush pie crust rim with egg wash, top with pie crust, and seal edges. Brush top with egg, make a few small holes in top crust for steam, and bake at 425°F for 20- 30 minutes or till crust is golden brown and center is hot.

Serve with small side bowls of mustard and chili sauce.

Serve with mashed potatoes and green beans.

Note : use amounts shown of cinnamon and cloves for your first time since they are strong flavors. Add more spices next time if desired.

I'm glad to have this, we have a freezerful of elk. The elk burger is already "cut" with beef fat from the butcher. I wonder if this would change the amount of pork used? I'll be safe, and nuke some little mini burgers to experiment.Thanks for the warning about the spices.

Having grown up on moose, elk and deer (my dad was a hunter) I have come to appreciate game much more as an adult. As kids our meat was unfortunately cooked until beyond well done! However, now, when I see game on menus in restaurants I am all over it. My favourite cuts of moose tend to be roasts and steaks. As they are lean you can use caul fat, bacon, pancetta, etc. I like to soak the meat in buttermilk to remove some of the extra gamey flavour. The meat is excellent medium rare - seared, grilled, etc. Marinades and brines are lovely, too, with juniper berries, rosemary, etc.

The ground stuff gets mixed with pork and suet into hamburger.Larger cuts are cooked in a variety of ways. I like to take the tougher pieces and cut them into 2 inch pieces, then brown them and braise them on low heat in a pool of good lager or pilsner (with which i deglaze the pan) and a lot of garlic. The gravy is out of this world.

Recently was treated to a Moose Mincemeat Pie. Never was a fan of mincemeat - got put off as a kid when I expected butter tart as I bit into mincemeat - but this one was excellent. Unfortunately this particular recipe is a closely held secret (for now), but it was a standard mincemeat in pie pastry containing ground moose, very little brandy, and lightly sweetened. The only game recipe I found was a Venison version :

Completely off topic, but this post made me laugh. I too remember staring at plates of Christmas pastries as a child, weighing my desire for a butter tart against the risk that it may turn out to be mincemeat.

Calling All Cooks! I have what I think is approximately 2 lb's of Venison "ham" that has now been thawed (as of yesterday) and I suspect I need to cook it very soon.

I have no idea what Venison (& I keep typing Verizon!) ham is, having never tasted, much less cooked it. Maybe something like a Coq au Vin version? Osso Bussco version? I honestly have no idea what to do with this.